[lbo-talk] Guardian: Danish paper rejected Jesus cartoons

Jim Devine jdevine03 at gmail.com
Mon Feb 6 15:03:41 PST 2006


B writes: >One of these brainiacs has a picture of himself and some buddies shooting a rifle through a Qur'an in his backyard, posted on his blog. He's merely offending the religion, not anyone's ethnicity. I've wondered myself about the clear line, if any, that demarcates "race" from "religion" in such cultures where ethnic identity is so tightly bound up with religious belief.<

in the secular-Jewish community I participate in, there's a strong line drawn between religion (belief in the Torah, etc.) and ethnicity. It's like being Italian without being Catholic. There's also a difference between being an Arab (an ethnicity) and being a Moslem. There are a lot of Arabs who are Jewish, Christian, Druse, or secular.

As for race, that's really not a good scientific category. It's more of a sociological category than a biological one. That is, it's the same as ethnicity. However, the word "racism" can still be apt. Racism involves (1) believing that biologically-based "races" are valid non-sociological categories; and (2) believing that some races are better than others.

-- Jim Devine

"The price one pays for pursuing any profession or calling is an intimate knowledge of its ugly side." -- James Baldwin



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